Last day at school

Well, that's that! I have finished my studies at Málaga ¡Si! and my Spanish Adventure is coming to an end (well, this chapter of it, anyway).

I took in a selection of little cakes for the staff and tried to buy thank you cards for my teachers. The latter proved impossible, so I had to resort to making them by hand. They were a little rough and ready, but seemed to go down well ;)


We did some last minute grammar revision in the conversation class and went over the future tenses. Since they mainly correspond quite closely to English, this wasn't too hard.

(Picture - Lothar, Sergio (teacher), Barbara, Isabella)




I was the only student in B2 Grammar and we did some work on various periphrases (is that a word?), which ended up being vital later on...

In my private lesson, we went over numbers and I was relieved to find that I am not alone in finding them a constant source of trouble.

Then I did the final exam. It was bloody hard and took me an hour and a half. It covered almost everything and I don't feel too confident with a lot of it. I just hope I did well enough to demonstrate that I have learnt lots.

I then came home and have just spent 2 hours cleaning my flat. It looks all sparkly now and all I have left to do is wash the floors, which I will do before I leave tomorrow. I have packed everything up and am ready to go. Tonight, I'm heading into town for a final Spanish chat time with my friends. Last night, José took me to a typical churro and hot chocolate place in town. It was really cool!

All that remains for me to do is to reiterate on here how much I appreciate all the help and patience I have received from the school. The teachers there are patient and professional, friendly and approachable, simply wonderful people. If I were to teach as well as they do, I would be a great teacher. Special thanks to Isa for teaching me some complicated grammar as well as a few very useful words and phrases to assist me in real life (!); Teresa again for grammar explanations that made the nonsensical possible to understand and even use and for encouraging me to read my first Spanish novel; and Sergio for conversation, grammar and generally being one very cool chap. Also, to all the other staff at the school - it is a great place to learn and the atmosphere you have created is second to none. You are all amazing and I hope we stay in touch for years to come.

I feel like I should say something profound in Spanish but I don't want to risk ending with some hideous grammatical mistake, so I'll just say:

Hasta luego Málaga ¡Si!

Final arrangements

I have finally sent home a box of stuff. I needed a cardboard box. Where would you go to get one in the UK?... a supermarket. No luck - they told me they had recycled them all (then again, people in supermarkets here are unusually unhelpful) I managed to get one from the school today, brought it home and packed it full of things I can live without for a while (and a kilo of sunflower seeds!) Next stop, the post office. It weighed in at 8.65 kilos!!! Hopefully, I will now be within my allowance for the flight. It cost 49€ to send, so not cheap, but surely a lot less than if I had been 8kg over my allowance - the cheap airlines like to make their profits that way!
Filling in the form was quite traumatic, but hopefully all is now good.

I also bought a last-minute pressie for ma and pa. I'm afraid most people are not getting anything, but Pip's carers definitely deserve a huge thanks. I can't tell you what I bought because it's a surprise!

I then tried to sunbathe a bit, but it was not very warm on the beach so I gave up.

Tomorrow is my last day at school. I am doing an exam after my classes in order to ensure I have passed B2 and get my certificate. I'm quite nervous but hopefully will be able to remember everything. It will be good practice for my A level next year.

Tomorrow, I also need to clean the flat and remember to pick up my deposit from the school. I've just realised the receipt for my deposit was in something I put in the box I posted, but I'm sure there will not be a problem. I can then use some of that money at duty free and keep any remaining euro for when I return here (or to Marbella...)

Last week...

My time here is coming to an end and I am feeling a bit stressed about making sure I have done everything and am ready to leave... send stuff home, buy everything I need to etc.

Classes are going well. I'm trying to mop up all the bits and pieces I still have doubts about. In conversation this week we have been looking at inventions. Yesterday we looked at some Spanish inventions and today we fed back about some from our countries. I had done a bit of research and talked about the TV, the telephone and penecillin. I also found out that steel rimmed umbrellas, cats' eyes, gas masks and viagra were all UK inventions!

In grammar, we looked at reported speech. For example, making John said "I hope you like your present" into John said that he hoped that I had liked my present. It seemed to be rather complicated, especially when you take into account the subjunctive and various pronouns. I have just spent about an hour on my homework and I wasn't too happy with it! In the private class, I have Sergio this week and today we (at my request) focused on the accent. It has a very unique role in Spanish and I was kind of aware of how to use it, but kept finding what I thought were exceptions and I now know are just the other 2 rules (ie there are 3, not 1 as I had thought!)

My final weekend :(

So, I had another nice weekend. On Saturday, I did quite a bit of sleeping, catching up after my tiring Marbella excursion. On Sunday, José texted to see if I fancied going for a drive. We went to a dock and looked at his family's little boat (and got splashed by the crazy sea - it has been really windy this weekend) then drove to a little town on the coast and he bought me lunch - some squid and prawns and salad, all very tasty.


Then we chilled out at his house and the others came over. The view from José's balcony is amazing.












We also saw the sun setting and it was quite breathtaking - the photo does not do it justice!









Today (Monday), I did some homework in the morning and then went into town. I decided to get on the tourist bus and did the proper sightseeing tour of Málaga. I wish I had done it on my first weekend instead of my last... it was quite expensive (€16), but worth it. It was an hour and a half long and the commentary, via headphones, was available in all languages, so I swapped between Spanish and English. The photos are of Malagueta beach (the beach in the centre) and Alcazaba castle and one to demonstrate how blue the sky was today! It was a bit chilly because of the north wind, but I did manage to spend some time on the beach today - in November!





This evening, I went out for a meal with my friends, to say farewell to me, as it is the last time we will all be meeting before I go. We had such a great time and ate some yummy tapas with lots of cheesy sauces, yum! I'm going to miss them a great deal and plan to come back again soon.