Yes, sadly, the amazingly warm (and supposedly unusual) weather that we were experiencing here in Santander appears to be gone for good. :(
Today, instead of being able to run around in shorts, or go lie on the beach, I had to stay bundled up in a sweater.. It was down around 13 degrees Celsius (hang on, let me convert that...) which is a chilly 55 degrees fahrenheit! I don't remember what it normally is back in CT right now, but it was nice to finally feel winter on its way!
Tonight, I went on an "intercambio" with a professor named Maria. An intercambio is basically where two people practice speaking with one another. For one hour, we spoke in English, and for the second we spoke in Spanish. Needless to say, her English was much better than my Spanish, but I learned a whole lot more. And then tonight during dinner, Teresa and I started talking about casinos, and I somehow got to explaining that casinos are not allowed in CT, except on Indian territories. Now try to imagine explaining what a sovereign nation is without using complex words, and without knowing how to say sovereign! After about 5 minutes, I think I had gotten the point across, but it only took 10 seconds after dinner for me to type it into wordreference.com and find out that I should have just said "nacion soberana"! Oh the joys of learning a language by submersion.. ;) Hasta pronto!
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Ultimate Frisbee - - What! What!
Okay, so we figured we needed to find something to fill our free time. So when a few of the other conversation teachers went walking through the university here in Santander, one of them found a notice asking for more players for Ultimate Frisbee!!
Needless to say, ultimate frisbee is an awesome game, but I never realized how hardcore it is until now!
We showed up the first day, thinking we'd be okay. All of us can throw and catch a frisbee. And all of us understand the basic rules of ultimate frisbee.. Boy were we surprised!
First thing we learned at the first practice was that there are only two correct ways to throw a frisbee. Lucky for me, I am very good at throwing one of the methods. However, I had never even tried throwing this other method (and it's complicated, so I'm not even gonna try and explain!) and it was, and still is very hard!
After about an hour of practicing throwing and catching and some defense/offense drills, they decide to start up a scrimmage. Here is where the real fun began..
Imagine going to your first ultimate frisbee scrimmage, and your teammates trying to teach you all the offense and defense strategies really quick before the first kick-off. Now, imagine that you barely understand their language!!! That, my friends, was the exact position I was in.. They were telling me about vertical and horizontal lines down the field, blocks towards certain sides at certain times, and who knows what else, and ALL IN SPANISH!
Needless to say, that was a workout both mentally and physically. I was able to make one awesome catch (dove for it, then summersaulted and somehow ended back on my feet), almost dove and caught one in the endzone, and made a few good passes. Afterwards, I was exhausted, couldn't breath from all the running, new a heck of a lot more about ultimate frisbee strategy, and had learned a couple new Spanish words relating to the game!
Tonight was our second practice.. Needless to say, I'm really enjoying it! I'll take some pictures at one of these practices.. Oh, and that's one more thing.. They practice 4 days a week! Mon,Wed,Fri 4 - 7 and Saturdays 12 till who knows when!! I think I'm gonna be in pretty good shape soon!
Okay, it's bedtime for me. :)
Needless to say, ultimate frisbee is an awesome game, but I never realized how hardcore it is until now!
We showed up the first day, thinking we'd be okay. All of us can throw and catch a frisbee. And all of us understand the basic rules of ultimate frisbee.. Boy were we surprised!
First thing we learned at the first practice was that there are only two correct ways to throw a frisbee. Lucky for me, I am very good at throwing one of the methods. However, I had never even tried throwing this other method (and it's complicated, so I'm not even gonna try and explain!) and it was, and still is very hard!
After about an hour of practicing throwing and catching and some defense/offense drills, they decide to start up a scrimmage. Here is where the real fun began..
Imagine going to your first ultimate frisbee scrimmage, and your teammates trying to teach you all the offense and defense strategies really quick before the first kick-off. Now, imagine that you barely understand their language!!! That, my friends, was the exact position I was in.. They were telling me about vertical and horizontal lines down the field, blocks towards certain sides at certain times, and who knows what else, and ALL IN SPANISH!
Needless to say, that was a workout both mentally and physically. I was able to make one awesome catch (dove for it, then summersaulted and somehow ended back on my feet), almost dove and caught one in the endzone, and made a few good passes. Afterwards, I was exhausted, couldn't breath from all the running, new a heck of a lot more about ultimate frisbee strategy, and had learned a couple new Spanish words relating to the game!
Tonight was our second practice.. Needless to say, I'm really enjoying it! I'll take some pictures at one of these practices.. Oh, and that's one more thing.. They practice 4 days a week! Mon,Wed,Fri 4 - 7 and Saturdays 12 till who knows when!! I think I'm gonna be in pretty good shape soon!
Okay, it's bedtime for me. :)
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