I'm a little bit annoyed right now, because I just spent 45 minutes typing out this post, but something happened and I lost the whole lot and had to start again!

Today has been a very different day for me because I had 2 hours of lessons in the afternoon in addition to the usual 4 hours in the morning. This is to make up for time that will be lost due to the bank holiday on Monday.

When I arrived in class today Cristina asked me some questions about the riots in London. I had some videos from the BBC news site that I wanted to show her, so we watched them on her laptop. One of them was an interview with a couple of girls that were involved in the riots, and it was from the Spanish version of the BBC news site (BBC Mundo) and had subtitles in Spanish. Afterwards we talked a bit about the videos, and I explained how the girls in the video were definitely chavs. I have been trying to explain what chavs are for a while and it was good to show Cristina how they think and how they try to justify their actions.

Towards the end of the lesson, we did an excercise where we had to read about a brief history of Spain, and then discussed it a bit afterwards. After that, I was supposed to talk her through a brief history of England, but I really struggled to do it. The point of the excercise was to practice speaking in the past tenses, but I simply didn't have enough information to do so. It's hard to condense the history of a country down into a few paragraphs! Cristina was clearly disappointed because she is very interested in the history and culture of England, and she kept trying to prompt me for information but I couldn't really tell her much.

After the lesson, I returned to the house and had the best lunch yet. To start I had gazpacho soup with tuna and egg which is always nice because it is very refreshing. Afterwards I had 2 small (and very nice) hamburgers, with pisto which is a dish comprising of onions, courgettes and peppers cooked in a tomato sauce. I have had this before in a restaurant, but it was quite different being home made. It wasn't as rich and was served cold and was delicious! Afterwards I had natillas.

After lunch I had 45 minutes before I had to leave for class again - not quite enough time to have a siesta (I could have squeezed it in but it would have been difficult to sleep straight away). Instead of sleeping I decided to read up on the wives of Henry VIII so that I could give a short presentation to Cristina when I returned to the class. I didn't have my notebook to take notes (I had left it in the classroom) but I managed to memorise most of the important details. I knew most of it before, but not in enough details to explain it, so this was just revision.

When I returned to class I asked Cristina if she wanted to hear a bit about 'Enrique Octavo de Inglaterra' and she said yes but only if I wanted to talk about it. I said that I wanted to and she took her notebook and sat on the other side of the desk (quite enthusiastically), and I stood in front of the whiteboard and explained the story to her. It was actually a lot of fun because Cristina was very happy to hear about it and even took notes and asked questions. It was also a great opportunity for me to practice talking in the past tenses which was the point of the original excercise.

The rest of the lesson proceeded as normal, but at a slightly slower pace because we were both quite tired (¡que sueño!). Towards the end of the lesson Cristina had prepared some things that were easier and a bit more fun than usual, as it is easier to do this type of activity at the end of such a long session. One of the great things about having Cristina as a teacher is that she is always adjusting the pace of the lesson so that I don't get bored. Sometimes she changes some of the excercises so that we can talk more and write less, and skips the stuff that I find really boring. Class is always a lot of fun and is normally the highlight of my day!

Now that I am back from class I am extremely tired, and don't really feel like doing a lot tonight. I think I have become quite dependant on my siesta!