Marbella, Spain

Hola a todos!

Marbella is a little city on the Mediterranean coast. It's in the South, 40 minutes from Malaga. Marbella has a very famous port called "Puerto Banus" where luxury stores and yachts are part of the scenery. I would say that Marbella is like a Beverly Hills or St Tropez. There are a lot of foreigners, from all around Europe and even the US. Because of that, everyone speaks English as it is the common language.

Marbella is a very touristy destination in the summer, but starting late september the city is more peaceful. I loved the diversity of its people but it was a little bit too "bling bling" for me. For someone who wants to go out and party, or has the means to go shopping in expensive stores, Marbella is the perfect spot. A lot of celebrities and important personalities go there on vacation, so don't be surprised if you encounter Paris Hilton in one of the nightclubs!

The weather was perfect, sunny and hot enough to go to the beach. I went there in October and felt like it was August! I carpooled to Marbella on my way there and took the bus on my way back to Madrid.

Check out www.blablacar.com which is a very famous website in Europe for people who want to carpool or sell seats in their car. It can be cheaper than taking the bus, or faster.

For my way back, I took a bus from the compagny "daibus".

The transportation cost me 60E in total.

I didn't book a hostel because one of my friends from home lives there so I just crashed at his place.

I would definitely recommend Marbella to you, its famous nightclubs, Puerto Banus and the Ocean club ( which is a little expensive but so worth it).

Adios!

Classes

Hello again dear readers,


Today I'm going to write about classes in Spain.
Before leaving for Madrid, the international programs office of Fairfield U sent us an email asking us to choose the classes we wanted from a course booklet. There was a lot of classes taught in Spanish but also in English. I wanted to take a business class abroad but the international programs office said it would be complicated so I chose to get rid of my core classes here. I'm taking history of modern philosophy, European history of the 20th century, international current issues from a Spanish perspective, Spanish modern Art and a Spanish class. They're taught by Spaniards who speak English. They're mostly lectures but some require a lot of participation because they're more interactive. We don't have as much homework as in the US but the final is 50% of our final grade !! They use a platform called "Moodle" which is like our Blackboard. You have two weeks in the beginning of September to add/drop a class so don't stress out before your departure.
Finals are in mid December, and papers are due the end of November, early December.
I got really lucky with my schedule since I don't have class on Friday and Monday, which means that I have a mini vacation every week. The professors here don't like it when you skip class, since attendance is part of your grade. People who have a Pass/Fail system don't really care if they miss 2 or 3 classes but Fairfield students must be careful since our grades in Spain will count towards our GPA. The grading system is on a 10-scale and not a 100 like in the US. 9-10 is excellent and difficult to achieve. Most Spaniards have between 7 and 9. I had to buy only one textbook, for my Spanish class, otherwise all the other classes are based on Power Point slides that are posted on "Moodle" so no need to even take notes.

Voila! hope that helps!