the "study" part of "study abroad"

On tuesday I have my first test in Spanish school. The class is Civilización y Cultura and i have to have over 4000 years of Spanish history memorized. All the Carlos' and Felipe's and all the wars and... EVERYTHING! She gave us a sheet with a ton of dates on it, front and back, and said if we knew that, we'd do alright. Not necessarily get an A but just alright. On the front page alone there is 50 dates.
It's almost 8 pm now and I have been studying since 11, with only a short break to eat, a break to skype the familia, and that's it. I feel like I'm not retaining anything at all and it bothers me so much because how am I ever gonna pass this test??
Hence the reason I will not be going to Sitges for Carnaval or anywhere else for that matter. I'm gonna stay in on a saturday during Carnaval weekend to study. yayyyy life! <3
I'M SO NERVOUSSSS!! i figure that after today I'll hopefully have at least half of the dates down. then there's the rest.

ANYWAY, in more fun news, I joined a Spanish gym! It has 5, yes 5, floors and everything you could possibly want in a gym. Wanna workout on some kinda cardio machine? done. Weight machines? done. Wanna swim? got an indoor pool AND an outdoor pool. Wanna box? got it. Wanna do classes? got about a million of them, running from 7 am to 9:30 pm. Is the weather nice and you wanna lay out? rooftop deck with pool. Are you hungry/thirsty? got a cafe. THIS PLACE HAS EVERYTHING! AND it's so nice, everything is really.. pretty? the showers are amazing, they've got saunas, they've got tanning beds if you're into that.. and all of this stuff is included in your membership. And I love going there. I haven't tried any of the classes yet but I think I will this week if I can ever decide which one to do.. until I decide I will keep going with my workouts; each time I've gone I've been there for over 2 hours because it feels good and because THERE'S SO MUCH TO DO!
That's the other thing.. At home I've had a nice routine of a couple of zumba classes each week, without fail. After being here, yea I've been walking a lot but I could almost feel myself getting flabby. Not saying I'm all muscle or anything but I do think I'm in pretty good shape and I don't wanna come back having lost that. That's definitely a big reason for me spending a lot of time at the gym whenever I go.. I need to make up for the lost time and get even fitter! :D i'm such a loser.

Today Chelsey got her wallet stolen out of her bag on the metro. She had everything in there; cards, cash, social security card, copy of her passport.. and it's all gone. She's the third person I know that has happened to. SO scary. It really is true, the pickpockets here are world class talent. They really know what they're doing and they do it well because none of those three people had any idea what had happened until hours later. You can be as careful as possible, sometimes it doesn't matter. Chelsey always has her hand on her bag and still, someone unzipped it and got her wallet out and she had no idea.. there really isn't much you can do because caution is only one part of it; if they're gonna steal your stuff, they're gonna steal it.

AND let's end this primarily depressing blog post with more depressing news: I've got a cold. I barely ever get sick and in the month I've been here, I have gotten sick twice. AWESOME!