Spring is here!

Hi guys, so I finally am sitting down and writing this, and I have a pretty good amount to tell you all about that has happened in the last two months or so.

So the first big thing was the Santander international half Marathon. It was on march 9th. I decided to run in it about 2 weeks before. I may have been a pretty good runner when I was in the USA, but not training was still a bad idea. So on march 9th I got up, got on my running stuff and headed over. The marathon was huge. 4000 runners, I had never ran with so many people. You were always running in a group and when I looked ahead of me or behind me we were just this giant train of people. There were so many people that when the race started I didn´t cross the start line until 41 seconds later, was totally new for me. The race went through almost all of the main parts of Santander, and followed the shoreline for a while and that gave a nice view. We got to run through the tunnels too, it was cool to get to be in them on foot, but they were about 10 degrees hotter -__- Most of the main roads were shut for this, the busses were diverted, it was huge. In the race its self they had pacers running at 1:20 1:30 1:40 1:50 and so on so you could follow one for a certain time. They had water stands every 4km or so, the people would hold out bottles filled with ice cold water already with the cap off. You didnt even have to stop. It was amazing. So for the first 13 or 15km of the race I was feeling pretty good. I was fine, going well, I was ahead of the 1:30 pacer. Then I totally died. I did manage to finish the race in a respectable 1 hour and 47 minutes without stopping or walking once! So all in all I am quite proud of that, It was lots of fun (in its own painful way). I got a cool shirt out of it. And I couldnt walk normal for 3-4 days I was so sore.

But, March 9th held more exciting things for me! Later that day the Gramse family came and picked me up! It was my third and final family change. The Gramses are the ones who I went to Logroño with all that time ago. I have lived with them for almost a month now. It is awesome! I have 3 siblings. Celia (10) Nadia (14) and Mario (16). Everything is great with them and this kinda leads me into the next cool thing!

My first weekend with the Gramses they decided we should go to France to skii for the weekend!!! So friday night we all piled into a car and had about a 6 hour drive to a small resort in France!! It was my first time out of Spain since I arrived, and my first time in France. It was pretty cool, and fairly similar to Spain so far as how it looked. I got to do some fun stuff on my snowboard (I have really missed it) and I learned how to ski!! On sunday afternoon Nadia wanted to try snowboarding, and we have the same shoe size so we did a trade. I picked it up really fast, I think all my experience with snow and my familiarity with the feeling of sliding over the snow helped a lot. Within 2 hours I did my first black! Then at lunch Nadia wanted to change back (like all begining snowboarders she was hurting a bit) so I traded her again and snowboarded till the last minute. Then back to Santander. It was a blast and I am going to try to put some pictures of all of this.

So those are the main important things. Other then that some I guess interesting things could be that I am forgetting my first bloody language. I skype my family and I can´t think of the words. If you use it I understand, but I just stop speaking for a second because I cant remember the english words. I have been doing a lot of paper work for up comming trips and next year stuff. And here is a little bit on my upcoming trips! I am going to Almeria in the south of spain for semana santa which is around 16-20 of april with the family. May 1-7 I am in DUBAI!!!! Visiting my Aunt Elise. May 17th the biological mothership comes to spain to visit me and be tricked into eating weird foods (muahahahha nobody tell here). And then in June there is the euro tour!!!

So thats everything I have been up to, thanks for reading and putting up with my extreme inconsistency in writing here, hope all is good to you where ever you may be.

Abrazos a todos
Jonah

6 months and skiing!

Hey everybody! First off I am really sorry about the massive delay in writing this, I have a ton of boring and actually valid excuses as to why it has taken so long, but instead I´ll skip them and get right back to telling you all what I have been up to.

So over the last month and the half there have definately been some incredible moments and times. Unfortunately I cant just write in here "oh went to the gym today great day" because then you all will die of boredom. So for the most part it has just been exchanger life for me. The language is just fine now, I know the city and my culture fairly well. I´m doin fine. So now you guys know I´m alive.

Now the interesting topic of this post was the ski trip I did two weeks ago. 24 other students from my school and I grouped up with 25 students from a school in Torrelavega, a nearby city in Cantabria. We were all my age, or most 1 year younger. We went with our P.E. departments. So it all started when we met outside my school at 6:45am on a sunday. At about 7 a bus arrived, and we loaded all our stuff in and got on. The kids from the other highschool were already on. We didnt know any of them. I unfortunately got a seat near the back far from those from my school (no spare seats). They then proceeded to yell and be noisey as heck. THE. WHOLE. TIME. We drove until probably 4pm stopping several times for an hour or half hour. We arrived at the village where we were staying then. The rest of the day was spent renting stuff, listening to boring talks about why not to loose your ski pass or break your face on a tree or something stupid like that. The next day we got up at about 7:30 and went to breakfast, then you went back to your room and got ready. The bus up to the resort left at about 8:45 and took about 10 minutes. This was the schedule for every day. So we got up there and headed up. We got to take a warmup run and then lessons started at 10. Now probably 40 of the 50 kids had never skiid or snowboarded in their life. Lessons were obligatory sadly, and I was naturally put in the advanced group since I have been doin this for 11 years. Luckly we had a pretty cool teacher, he kinda just pointed me in a direction and then saw me later. He showed me a ton of awesome places to go throughout the week. Lessons ended at 12 every day, then you could go for runs if you with a group and then lunch started at 1. We would ski till 4:30 every day. Then the bus took us back down and you had break time until 6:30 when there was some sort of activity every day like soccer or pingpong. Normal stuff. At 8 we went back to the hotel, and its break time again until 8:45 when dinner starts. Then break until 10:30 when we went to a disco rented out for us. The disco was a ton of fun. For the first few days it was a lot of people standing around and being weird and not wanting to dance. Not meeee! So I tried to draw more and more people into it. Everyone quickly knew me and recognized my face by tuesday. Then they learned I was the experienced snowboarder here. And they all became great friends. Im really proud of everyone comming out of their shells by friday, almost everyone was dancing when we left. Then at 12:30 we went back to the hotel, sleep. Repeat. So that was the schedule. I had the time of my life the whole time. We had fantastic snow at certain points, and other times when it wasnt so great. On thursday I was awarded best snowboard, and Mr of the camp (kinda like king or something) and for that I got a shiny medal, a paper with my name spelled wrong then corrected but still spelled wrong, and a really nice new backpack. Friday night we left and we got in late. It was a unforgettable trip and I cannot stop saying how much fun it was. A shout out to the people at the shop who we rented from, I talked to them a bit then they hooked me up with an awesome board and bindings, they let me set them up too. Oh! The casualty count for the trip goes as follows: One broken shoulder, One broken knee, One broken wrist, andddd for one of my roomates, a broken collar bone. So quick recovery to them, and those are the major injuries of the trip.

In other news, today is Jonahs 6 month mark in Spain! Im not going to write a huge thing about how amazing it is, because no words in any language can do this experience justice. Its the best! Thank you to everyone who helped make this happen, supported me, and that I met along the way.

Other other shenanigans, I have recently signed up for a half marathon put on by my city for march 9th so that will be oodles of fun! There isn´t much goin on. If you would like to know more you can email me at jonahmarks22@gmail.com or if there is a question about spain or something else youd like to see in the blog. I have started up instagram again, so here is a link to that, but its mainly goofy stuff.

So thank you all very much for reading! See you all in a while!!
Abrazooos!

The Holidays!

Hi everyone! So I realize I havent written since last year and I am sorry. Things got kinda crazy.

So I got out of school the 20th of Dec. The first few days of vacation were slow and fairly boring. Everyone was passing time with the family. On the 24th it was christmas eve and we went to Sergios  (my host dad) parents house with the cousins and extended host family. We had lots of fun and a huge meal. And that was basically it . On christmas day we went to Carolinas (my host mom) parents house and it was just us and them for lunch. We passed the afternoon there, then went to a movie. Then home and sleep. Thursday I met up with a friend or two and then made the random decision to goto Burgos.

 So the next day i caught an early bus to Burgos. While in Burgos I stayed with Nuria and I had a great time there. It was really nice to hang out with Nuria again. Also the city of Burgos has way more history then Santander. I saw one of the most important cathedrals in spain and it was truly breath taking. Photos of all this will be added later. There were a few times when Nuria had to study, so her family took me out and showed me the city. They took me to a small church that was completely amazing. It also housed the tombs of the parents of the catholic kings. I saw the building where Columbus asked the catholic kings for help with his trip. Overall it was just awesome. Everything was great. Also a huge thank you to Nurias family. They really took me in and were great to me.

Now on the bus ride home on Monday my counselor called me and told me I changed family that afternoon, so a surprise to say the least. When I got home my host family had already heard too. So I packed everything up as fast as I could. Around 6 we got in the car and went to the meeting place. Now this family lives in a small village in the peaks of europe. It's called Potes, and its 125km from Santander. Monday through Friday my host mom and sibilings live in a tiny apartment on the edge of Santander. During the weekend and vacations they live in potes. So I came up here to potes with them for vacations. It all was a lot of change really fast. I believe A huge thank you is in order to my first host family for everything they have done for me. Anyways, the whole living in a new area was a bit much. I need to be in the city where I created my life here. But I sat down with the family and I guess I'm only going to be with them for a month, or so rotary says. During this month they would stay down in the apartment in santander so a huge thank you to them too. However vacations would be passed in Potes. So my second night with them was new years eve, we met up with their whole extended family and had a huge dinner. Everyone was very welcoming and nice. In Spain at 12 they ring a gong 12 times on TV and you are supposed to eat one grape for each ring. I didn't manage to eat them fast enough but nobody ever does. Afterwards me and my two host sisters went out to a bit of a new years party. Speaking of which, here I have a brother who is 8 years old named David, a sister Angela who is 14, and a sister Lucia who is 16. However Lucia was only here for the holidays, she is on exchange in Boston. So now its just me David and Angela. After that we had several days in Potes. Potes is very pretty, but there isn't really much for me to do here. Later the night of the 5th is another Spanish holiday called 3 Reyes magos. It's a bit more for the little kids, and this is when most families do presents. So that night there is a parade as the Reyes go through town and then they stop at a tower sort of place and kids are called up and the Reyes give them a present. Also when you go home you find more presents that those sneaky Reyes left in your house. I received a nice sweatshirt. It was a really cool holiday season.

Now I am positive I am forgetting tons of things so more might appear in other posts. All in all, a giant thank you to Nurias family, another to my first family, and one to my new family. I hope all of you had an amazing holiday season, and happy 2014 everyone! Until next time (I promise it will be within a month)!

Abrazos a todos
Jonah