A Day in the Life of "Spanish" Sarah

I know that it's probably pointless to tell you about a normal day for me here in Spain, but you guys need to know this before I leave. I need to know this too in a way so that I can remember my daily life here too.

A normal Monday or Wednesday for me usually goes something like this:

I get up around 6:30 or 7 a.m. (that's 12:30 or 1 a.m for Americans on Eastern time) to read my Bible, pray, check messages from the day before, do homework and chat with the occasional friend I might find still online. Breakfast is usually at 9 a.m. for me on Mondays and 7:45 a.m. on Weds.--since I work at an elementary school around 9-9:30 a.m.). My señora wakes us up each morning for breakfast by knocking on our doors and saying, "Desayuno." [breakfast]!!
You will not find many (or any) señoras who do this. Although mine's pretty strict, we are so spoiled here.
In the beginning I did sleep til 8:30 or 9 a.m. and she did in fact wake me from my slumber, but now, with weeks of having lots and lots of homework, I get up earlier....and if you know me, you know that I like to get ahead and I enjoy mornings and being productive first thing, so that's why I get up early. Spanish people think I'm absolutely crazy. haha
Breakfast consists of hot tea, water, hard toast [tostada] or cookies [galletas] with Nutella or marmelade and fruit--oranges, bananas, kiwis. In the beginning, I had cookies with Nutella and then tostada with Nutella but after a few breakouts and realizing how terrible it is for you, I stopped.
If you eat the sweets the Spanish eat normally, you could easily become diabetic. That became super clear to me after I read the ingredients of the Nutella. It's basically a heart-attack in a jar!
Although I try to get dressed and ready before breakfast, I usually am getting ready for the day, putting on my make-up [yes, you read this right] and gathering all the stuff I need fore the day in my bag after I get up from the table and thank my señora for preparing breakfast [which all she does is heat up the water for tea for us, but still that's work in itself].
As I leave the house I tell her, "Hasta luego," and head out the door with my packed lunch in hand and go down the three sets of stairs t the main door of the apartment building and then cross the patio and go down three more sets of stairs til I finally get to the street. From there I turn the corner and am out in all the action for the day. There's a supermarket just around the corner from me and people are always coming out of there or taking their kids to school or walking to work. It's a busy little street at times.
If I'm not running errands or meeting someone in the mornings, I usually head straight to the metro to go to school or to the public library after leaving the house on Mondays. Wednesday mornings I walk over to the school and work on the blog I'm making for the International Relations Dept. It's not a long walk at all and after I finish there I walk just a little ways down the street and down some side streets and take the metro to school for my 1:30 p.m. Sociology class.
Usually, before class starts I'm able to eat my packed lunch (which consists of a sandwich--bocadillo--, fruit and an orange juice juicebox. The sandwiches are usually good, but the bread is kinda salty and the cheese melts and looks like mayonnaise some times. And it gets. everywhere. Ugh. haha
During Sociology I try to be active and participate in the discussion but most of the time I'm fighting off sleep cause the topics are kinda boring and we take little to no notes every day.
On both Mondays and Wednesdays I have an hour in between my Sociology class and Global Economy class (at 4 p.m). so I either surf the web on my netbook and write messages, read for my next class [which is what I am most likely doing] or just sit and soak up the sun and listen to music....or meet new Spanish people around me. :)
Between 4 and 5:20 p.m my ears rejoice at the sound of my British Econ professor's voice, but my brain gets a little mushy as I make the transition back to English and learning about the complex problems other countries are facing and economic models. I try my hardest to participate in his class, but for the life of me I just can't get my thoughts out fast enough...and they are usually too basic. But now I feel that I have learned enough about Global Economics that I am just as competent as the next person in my class to discuss topics and issues.
After class, I talk to friends and we all trek back to the metro stop [which is like 10-15 mins away from this building I'm in...Building 24--grrr]. Usually the metro is about to arrive by the time we get there or it has just left by the time we make it there and have to wait for another one. The metro ride itself takes about 20 mins and then the walk back to my house is like 15 mins from my stop at Plaza de Cuba. Sometimes I go straight home after class to check things on the internet or talk to someone, but lately I have been going to the river to sit and tan or go run other errands or do some browsing/shopping. It just depends on what I need to do that day.
I like to shower on Monday, Wed, Friday and with 4 girls sharing one bathroom it's hard to get in sometimes. On Mondays especially I shower before dinner so that the other [diva] girls can have the bathroom and use it as much as they need to.
Dinner is always at 9 p.m on the dot my time and my señora likes us to be prompt. Sometimes she will serve it earlier if we are all in the house at the same time and it's ready. I've had a few run-ins with dinnertime since no other señora keeps such a strict time schedule as mine does. It usually lasts anywhere between 30-45 mins depending upon what we talk about or what's on the news. I still don't like the fact that it's sooo late in the day, but my body has adjusted to it.
After dinner I go back to working on homework, reading my ridiculously long literature books, surfing the web, cleaning my room, preparing for the next day or Skyping with my family and the occasional friend.
My goal is to go to bed at 11:30 p.m. or earlier but I usually end up getting there around midnight or 12:30 a.m....which means I get little sleep each night. I can function alright for the most part, but I really wish I got more sleep here.
And then I basically repeat this for Tuesday and Thursday, but an abbreviated version of those days will be coming soon!

If you made it all the way to the end of this post, you must have a ton of time on your hands...or are just very curious to see how I spend my days here in Spain! Either way, thanks for reading!

Mucha cariña,

Sarah