Another 2 weeks have flown by! It has just been a normal 2 weeks here. Rains all the time. The usual. However yesterday was my 3 months in Spain mark. These three months have been the most amazing three months of my life, it has been indescribable. I want to say thank you to a all organizations and people involved, all of your support and help has given me the best thing in my life, and I am very thankful for it! In these past three months I have seen and traveled to new worlds. I have learned a totally new culture and I am still continuing to learn it. I learned a new language, and I met 1,000 incredible and unique people along the way. It has been the absolute best. As yesterday was my 3 month mark, I got the best present I could have gotten. Last night I had my first dream entirely in spanish. It wasn´t one with one or two sentences in spanish, I had the whole dream in spanish! So that was awesome for me, and shows you all how I am doing with the language.
On another note I do have thanksgiving plans! Here thanksgiving is not a holiday, but that won´t stop me. I will leave friday after school and catch a bus to Bilbao again. I will spend the weekend in Bilbao with Amaia, and we will do our own little Thanksgiving.
So that is everything that I have to tell you all about for now! Thank you for reading!!
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Run the exams are coming!
Hi everybody! So it has been about 2 weeks now and I think this will be around the average time between posts. Enough interesting things accumulate for me to write a fair amount in this time. It has been a fantastic 2 weeks over here in España.
So last week there wasn´t too much going on, except the extreme dread of the exams starting. Exams here for the students are basically pure terror, and frantic studying. This is because of the fact that exams here are basically your grade. They are atleast 80% of your grade in the class, and they are HARD. We have so far been through 5 of them, the vast majority of them in the past week. I haven´t done so hot on most of them, aside from the english one. I think I did all right there. Only problem was it kept on asking me to use the phrasal verbs or the past simple or present simple continous. I have no idea what those are, so I put what made sense to me. Ohhhh weellll! The exam that I am actually looking forward to is my french exam. The teacher did something else for me since I haven´t ever taken french before so its my only class that I really get. I think I will do good on it, and I have loved that class. So a big thank you to Ladislo (my french teacher) for changing some stuff up for me and really giving me a class. It has really been great to have a teacher who did that for me. In this coming week I believe I have a philosofy exam, a chemistry one, I am really hopeful about chemistry too, that was one of my really good subjects back in the usa and I have learned everything we have done in that class so far so I hope it goes well. I also have my french one next week!! So all in all school isn´t killing me, its going good. There was a little mishap last monday in english class. The front part of the classroom floor is about 7 inches higher and thats where the teachers desk is. I was sitting in the front row in english, and at the start of the class the teacher came in and moved the desk a little. The front legs fell off the platform and the desk slid forward crushing my hand between it and the top of my desk. The kids in the english class might have learned a few new english curse words, but thats ok. I didn't break any bones, but I did manage to mess my hand up pretty well. I acutally just took my splint off, and it is all good now. So no need to worry. Other then that like I said it is all just smooth sailing.
Outside of school I spend a lot of time running, and I have started going to the gym a bit too. I have an amazing running route here. Its a large route that starts out going down a large street, then through a forest park, then the majority of my run is spent on this boardwalk at the edge of a cliff above the ocean. The view is absolutely incredible. I could run for days there and never get tired. It takes me past one of the northernmost points of spain, not the most, but probably the second or third guessing off of google maps. Lately we have been getting a lot of rain, so I can't always run or do that, and it isn´t all to pretty all the time. But when it is nice, it is amazing. Every weekend I go out, and I am starting to get a pretty big group of friends. Everyone knows me, because I´m the only american around here. There are lots and lots of british people, but I haven´t met any other americans. And none of the other foreigners are exchange students, they live here. So sometimes random people start talking to me which is always fun!
This weekend I did a little trip (the afternoon yesterday till about noon today) to Bilbao. In Bilbao I hungout and stayed with Amaia and her family. She is a fellow exchange student through rotary, and the only other northerner with me. They were really nice, and the city was amazing. I have a few pictures of it that I can put up. The buildings there are way nicer then most of the buildings here with the exception of El Palicio de Magdalenas here. But, the terrain doesn't have anything on that of Santander. Bilbao is also a bigger city, it has the little trains that go around, and a nice bus system.
The buses and everything made me start to think of the public transport here so I have to tell you about it. I love it, it is so easy and affordable. I would take it any time over being able to drive myself. Within Santander there are over 200 bus stops all around the city. The buses come quite frequently, and are set up so that if you are staying in the city part you can take almost any bus, so you won´t wait more then 2 minutes. The buses by my house come around every 5-10 minutes so it is not at all bad. They run on time, and they are great. Its 0.60€ for each bus trip which isn´t bad. So thats the transport inside the city. Outside the city I have only expierienced the planes and buses. The planes are basically exactly the same. I haven´t tried the trains but they seem pretty easy and nice. The buses I freaking love. If your location is close their could be a bus departing for there every hour or so. They are idiot simple, and very affordable. My ticket to go to Bilbao this weekend, a city 1.5 hours away, was 6€. Just the whole system both inside and outside the city is so amazing.
So thats all for now, thank you all so very much for reading, and a big thank you to everyone who came together to help my exchange happen. It means the world to me. Caio
-Jonah
So last week there wasn´t too much going on, except the extreme dread of the exams starting. Exams here for the students are basically pure terror, and frantic studying. This is because of the fact that exams here are basically your grade. They are atleast 80% of your grade in the class, and they are HARD. We have so far been through 5 of them, the vast majority of them in the past week. I haven´t done so hot on most of them, aside from the english one. I think I did all right there. Only problem was it kept on asking me to use the phrasal verbs or the past simple or present simple continous. I have no idea what those are, so I put what made sense to me. Ohhhh weellll! The exam that I am actually looking forward to is my french exam. The teacher did something else for me since I haven´t ever taken french before so its my only class that I really get. I think I will do good on it, and I have loved that class. So a big thank you to Ladislo (my french teacher) for changing some stuff up for me and really giving me a class. It has really been great to have a teacher who did that for me. In this coming week I believe I have a philosofy exam, a chemistry one, I am really hopeful about chemistry too, that was one of my really good subjects back in the usa and I have learned everything we have done in that class so far so I hope it goes well. I also have my french one next week!! So all in all school isn´t killing me, its going good. There was a little mishap last monday in english class. The front part of the classroom floor is about 7 inches higher and thats where the teachers desk is. I was sitting in the front row in english, and at the start of the class the teacher came in and moved the desk a little. The front legs fell off the platform and the desk slid forward crushing my hand between it and the top of my desk. The kids in the english class might have learned a few new english curse words, but thats ok. I didn't break any bones, but I did manage to mess my hand up pretty well. I acutally just took my splint off, and it is all good now. So no need to worry. Other then that like I said it is all just smooth sailing.
Outside of school I spend a lot of time running, and I have started going to the gym a bit too. I have an amazing running route here. Its a large route that starts out going down a large street, then through a forest park, then the majority of my run is spent on this boardwalk at the edge of a cliff above the ocean. The view is absolutely incredible. I could run for days there and never get tired. It takes me past one of the northernmost points of spain, not the most, but probably the second or third guessing off of google maps. Lately we have been getting a lot of rain, so I can't always run or do that, and it isn´t all to pretty all the time. But when it is nice, it is amazing. Every weekend I go out, and I am starting to get a pretty big group of friends. Everyone knows me, because I´m the only american around here. There are lots and lots of british people, but I haven´t met any other americans. And none of the other foreigners are exchange students, they live here. So sometimes random people start talking to me which is always fun!
This weekend I did a little trip (the afternoon yesterday till about noon today) to Bilbao. In Bilbao I hungout and stayed with Amaia and her family. She is a fellow exchange student through rotary, and the only other northerner with me. They were really nice, and the city was amazing. I have a few pictures of it that I can put up. The buildings there are way nicer then most of the buildings here with the exception of El Palicio de Magdalenas here. But, the terrain doesn't have anything on that of Santander. Bilbao is also a bigger city, it has the little trains that go around, and a nice bus system.
The buses and everything made me start to think of the public transport here so I have to tell you about it. I love it, it is so easy and affordable. I would take it any time over being able to drive myself. Within Santander there are over 200 bus stops all around the city. The buses come quite frequently, and are set up so that if you are staying in the city part you can take almost any bus, so you won´t wait more then 2 minutes. The buses by my house come around every 5-10 minutes so it is not at all bad. They run on time, and they are great. Its 0.60€ for each bus trip which isn´t bad. So thats the transport inside the city. Outside the city I have only expierienced the planes and buses. The planes are basically exactly the same. I haven´t tried the trains but they seem pretty easy and nice. The buses I freaking love. If your location is close their could be a bus departing for there every hour or so. They are idiot simple, and very affordable. My ticket to go to Bilbao this weekend, a city 1.5 hours away, was 6€. Just the whole system both inside and outside the city is so amazing.
So thats all for now, thank you all so very much for reading, and a big thank you to everyone who came together to help my exchange happen. It means the world to me. Caio
-Jonah
Amaia gave me american food! :)
This thingy is cool
Amaia and I infront of the cute little doggy
Tasty art....
Your classic street
A cool building
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