h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Tomorrow I´m leaving Alicante and flying up to Basel in Switzerland to meet Nic, who´s been studying in France for the past few months

I´ve really enjoyed the past 6 weeks here in Alicante, and hope to come back and study here again. Ive made some good friends, got a bit of a tan, drunk more than is really necessary and generally had a great time Oh, and I learned some spanish

Im not really sure how much - sometimes I feel quite confident and can join in a simple conversation, but other times Im just overwhelmed by the grammar... Especially since I´ve started learning different tenses (and moods I think), so in theory I can now say thinks like I will go, and I would like to do, you do this. But actually, I need my book of verb endings open all the time! I plan on buying a book and continuing to study when Im back in the UK, and I can write to people keep practising that way.

The last 2 weeks involved rather a lot of partying - the annual festival was last week, which was very entertaining. On the friday night they burn all the sculptures that have been put up in the preceding week. There are always fire fighters (bomberos - I like this word for some reason) in attendance, because most of these large highly flammable things are within metres of buildings. So they hose the buildings down beforehand (and the crowd), then make sure the whole thing goes out in the end. It was really interesting, altho a bit sad because they were quite beautiful pieces of art. I took quite a few photographs (some of which I will try and email or put on a website soon).

In the follow up, they have a fireworks competition for 5 nights, and most of the the population goes to the beach at midnight to watch. The standard was very high, and 3 of the nights were way better than the Australia Day ones Ive seen in Perth. They had heaps of cool multi stage ones, and also ones that landed in the sea, then exploded again from there - very cool I love fireworks (in case you hadnt already gathered) - theyre so sparkly and colourful and pretty!!

It has become clear that the spanish are not overly concerned about noise or air pollution - the volume, and the amount of smoke drifting about after the fogueras, and the fireworks was phenomenal...

(Yes, I am still a tree-hugging hippy at heart... and a nerd...)

Thats probably enough drivel for now Ooh - but first, a funny spanish character, before I change to different keyboards

Ñ ñ

the name of this letter is enye, and thats pretty much how you say it

Love to all, more soon