My first Monday in Spain and I came late to class because I was looking at the wrong schedule...Not a problem though after I explained everything to Marielena. (that's professor Bierling back in Michigan) It turns out that I will probably get to know most of the older ladies in Denia through the many acquaintances of my mama here in Denia. I spent all of yesterday shopping with Pepita and my mama at a mall close to our house. There were some good rebajas (sales) going on and I took advantage of them. I have 150 euros to spend that will be reimbursed by Iberian airlines because they pay 50 euros per day to passengers whose maletas (suitcases) don't arrive on time. My little suitcase was three days in arriving, and I was pretty happy to be able to drop some euros on sweaters and shoes and pants and socks and...yeah I bought a lot. The mama does a pretty good job making me at home. She is a funny lady, and has an interesting habit of finishing my sentences for me before I am done talking. I'm really great at starting a sentence, but I rarely have the chance to finish before she jumps on it. We'll have to figure that one out. She cooks really well also; for example for lunch I had salmon, mussels, red wine and some kind of soup with valencia oranges. Her little apartment is right at the base of the castle in Denia. The walls by us are part man-made and part natural cliff; I would say that they are about 120 or so feet tall by us, but less in other parts.
On saturday a bunch of us Calvin students met a the bus station and began our little expedition to La Torre de Gerro, which is this 50-foot-tall tower about 5 miles south of Denia that overlooks "really tall" cliffs and gives a great view of the Mediterranean. Seth Kuiper and I climbed to the third "floor" of the tower, but realized when we got there that the rope that we had been using was worn thin at the top, whereas it had looked quite strong with intermittent knots at the bottom. So we didn't get to the top, but the view was still amazing. I am not a huge fan of spending long amounts of time at dangerous heights with 30 mph wind blasting me in the face, so I didn't last long in the tower. Next weekend we are going to Valencia, so that will be an interesting time...