Hello again everybody! So once again I just have had a fairly normal week. Things are still a little bit hectic with my school and I am really hoping that soon they settle down to a steady schedule soon. I´m starting to re-consider how often exactly I will write in here, because I have finally started to settle into a normal sort of life. I´m not off doing something totally crazy and new every weekend, I am just living and loving the spanish life. I saw my clock on the blog and it was just...shocking to see how long I have been here. It doesn't exactly feel like I'm still in the first 4 weeks, but its hard to believe it has been that long. One cool thing that I can tell you about is that we had a nation wide strike today where nobody goes to school! So I got a day off and it was awesome. I find it pretty cool that there is a national skip school day every year. And the parents are fine with it because they know the teachers don't teach class on that day because nobody is there! Also for some schools (not mine sadly) tomorrow is a day off. This is a classic example of the mindset, we just had a strike and skipped school, slept in and did nothing. We need a break. No school tomorrow! I find it hilarious and awesome! This weekend I plan on going paintballing with my host brother Mario and his friends so that should be a fun/terrifying and painful expierience.
So with the language I have really started to realize how easy it has became for me. I can think in spanish most of the time and have few or no problems with speaking. However whenever I feel like I am doing really good with the language I go somewhere and proceed to understand nothing, and act like I know nothing. Then someone tries to help me out by speaking english and that reminds me that I can´t even speak very good english anymore D: However everything is going pretty smoothly and it is. I can go to the movies and understand (thank goodness the next hunger games comes out soon) And I am just incredibly pleased with how it is all going for me.
Yesterday was the 2 month mark for me. This has the best 2 months of my life. I want to say a big thank you to everyone who made this happen. It is indescribable the expierience. I could never be able to accurately put it in words what it has ment to me, and how amazing it all is. Thank you all so very much!!!
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Normal isn't Normal
So the past week was for once, a normal week. It was really weird to have a normal week. I am adjusting to school and what not. For the most part I don´t do too much in school. School here is way more dificult. The normal students go home and study for 5 hours every day, and some have tutors. And this is even their first language, their native tongue. So for me it is extremely dificult. I don't understand a lot from classes because lots of the teachers use words that I don't know. They also seem to speak a lot faster. One thing that did come as a surprise to me was that I have done most of what we are learning. But we will see as time goes on. But for now in most classes I don't do much, and I don't study much. I prefer to go out after school and expierience spain. I do give effort when in class but its hard. French is my best class because the teacher is awesome and doing something totally different for me. I'm really trying in that class, I really would like to learn french. The school is still changing around my schedule so its kinda weird. I really cannot wait until I get a finalized schedule, but I am really happy that they are making efforts to accomadate me. I don´t really know what to tell you all haha. I have greatly increased my doodling skills. I taught most of the class how to make paper ninja stars so we now have large wars with those at breaks. So I don´t have much else to tell! Thank you all for reading! Ciaoooooo
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
An Overload of Awesome.
So, as the title of this post kinda hints, this last period of time since I last posted has been awesome. Now I am going to proceed to totally skip over most of it, and start with Friday.
Friday was a pretty normal friday (pretty awesome I know) minus the fact that this was the semana azul at my my school. That means, blue week. All week long there had been activities having to do with water for the various age groups of kids. The activities were optional, but due to the fact that mine was awesome I signed up. I was in the last group on Friday. The activity for Primero de Bachiller (my grade) was scuba diving. During the second break of the day me and the 8 other students who had signed up for it got to leave. We took the bus across the city, then walked a bit. We got suited up in wetsuits, jackets, boots, flippers, goggles, the whole thing. We all piled into a car and drove just a little ways to some docks where we got weight belts and air tanks. We then assembled everything and loaded into a boat and headed out to sea. I figured we would be diving at Mouro as that is a fairly popular spot. But, it turns out we would be diving at a spot just off the coast near El Palicio de Magdalenas (a palace the royal family had built way back when cause they liked coming here). Once there we got some talks about with the respirators and goggles and what to do if you get water in either or various things. Then gear on and down we go. We went down to the sea floor in a sandy patch. We all got in a circle and did a few basic things, practicing taking out your respirator and putting it back in, getting your goggles filled partly with water and getting it out. Then off we went. It was amazing. We were 10-12m under. Their were huge rocks in the water here, and patches of sand. In the plates of rocks there were sometimes cracks. We would swim through these cracks like a giant maze. Sometimes they were thinner at a certain point, and you could swim beneath that. It basically made super awesome underwater tunnels. It´s a totally diferent world down there. Fish swim all around you. I saw so much wildlife. I saw fish of all sizes, shapes, colors. 2 of the most exciting things were a seeing a scorpion fish, and an octopus. First the teacher pointed out the octopus then swam after it. it was a purple octopus, fairly large. He grabbed it, and it squirmed around and shot ink everywhere which looked cool underwater. Then it got away, so I grabbed it but it shot ink again, so I let it go. It was so cool. Then later as we swam over a crevice the teacher pointed out a scorpion fish on the bottom. It was fairly large, and it was really cool to see what decided to sting me way back when. Overall it was just indescrible. It was so amazing and I think I have a new hobby. I loved it so much and I really would like to go again.
Moving on to Saturday and Sunday, we had a trip to the mountains to listen to the deer or something (city people hobbies). We were up in the middle of nowhere, in a cabin used sometimes by sheperds to stay in while they chase cows around the mountains. I wasn´t extremely impressed by the deer, however the mountains were incredible. I´m not going to write too much about them but it was amazing. I summitted 3 peaks in 24 hours, and saw some just breath taking views. On the first day we ate lunch just below a peak, so I was eating above the clouds, and for a bit of the meal, in them. Some of the mountains were over 2500m in altitude, so they weren´t tiny sissy mountains either. Now enjoy the pictures, and thanks for reading :)
Friday was a pretty normal friday (pretty awesome I know) minus the fact that this was the semana azul at my my school. That means, blue week. All week long there had been activities having to do with water for the various age groups of kids. The activities were optional, but due to the fact that mine was awesome I signed up. I was in the last group on Friday. The activity for Primero de Bachiller (my grade) was scuba diving. During the second break of the day me and the 8 other students who had signed up for it got to leave. We took the bus across the city, then walked a bit. We got suited up in wetsuits, jackets, boots, flippers, goggles, the whole thing. We all piled into a car and drove just a little ways to some docks where we got weight belts and air tanks. We then assembled everything and loaded into a boat and headed out to sea. I figured we would be diving at Mouro as that is a fairly popular spot. But, it turns out we would be diving at a spot just off the coast near El Palicio de Magdalenas (a palace the royal family had built way back when cause they liked coming here). Once there we got some talks about with the respirators and goggles and what to do if you get water in either or various things. Then gear on and down we go. We went down to the sea floor in a sandy patch. We all got in a circle and did a few basic things, practicing taking out your respirator and putting it back in, getting your goggles filled partly with water and getting it out. Then off we went. It was amazing. We were 10-12m under. Their were huge rocks in the water here, and patches of sand. In the plates of rocks there were sometimes cracks. We would swim through these cracks like a giant maze. Sometimes they were thinner at a certain point, and you could swim beneath that. It basically made super awesome underwater tunnels. It´s a totally diferent world down there. Fish swim all around you. I saw so much wildlife. I saw fish of all sizes, shapes, colors. 2 of the most exciting things were a seeing a scorpion fish, and an octopus. First the teacher pointed out the octopus then swam after it. it was a purple octopus, fairly large. He grabbed it, and it squirmed around and shot ink everywhere which looked cool underwater. Then it got away, so I grabbed it but it shot ink again, so I let it go. It was so cool. Then later as we swam over a crevice the teacher pointed out a scorpion fish on the bottom. It was fairly large, and it was really cool to see what decided to sting me way back when. Overall it was just indescrible. It was so amazing and I think I have a new hobby. I loved it so much and I really would like to go again.
Moving on to Saturday and Sunday, we had a trip to the mountains to listen to the deer or something (city people hobbies). We were up in the middle of nowhere, in a cabin used sometimes by sheperds to stay in while they chase cows around the mountains. I wasn´t extremely impressed by the deer, however the mountains were incredible. I´m not going to write too much about them but it was amazing. I summitted 3 peaks in 24 hours, and saw some just breath taking views. On the first day we ate lunch just below a peak, so I was eating above the clouds, and for a bit of the meal, in them. Some of the mountains were over 2500m in altitude, so they weren´t tiny sissy mountains either. Now enjoy the pictures, and thanks for reading :)
The group for scuba
Belén!
Jumpin spot
Cabin was the one in the middle
Halfway up
I´m in a cloud!
In a cloud again!!
At the peak
Don´t let the pretty colors fool you all of that was thistle type plants :(
From another peak
Another view from a peak
A little stream
One of the sort of peaks I climbed
Yes we were up at the very top
The cabin and the group
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