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
Friday, September 27, 2013
Logroño and School!
So! Over the weekend I went to Logroño with the Gramse family. Logroño is the capitol of La Rioja, a close by province famous for its wines. So we had a 3 hour drive friday night. When we got there we met the family of rotarians we would be staying with. Then we almost immediatly hit the hay. The next day we explored the city, chilled out in parts of an ancient castle. The usual stuff. The next day we went to a garden house/area of the family a little bit outside the town. There we met up with an exchange student in Logroño for her exchange. I already knew her from Madrid Orientation. We had a big lunch, and passed the afternoon there. But then we had to go. 3 more hours in the car and we were home. I had a great time and it was tons of fun!
Now, on to the schooling. The monday and tuesday I was living with Carolina in her parents house, as her father was traveling and her mother needed someone to be there. So their house is about 8 minutes from the normal house. From their house to Las Llamas (my school) it is about a 5-10 minute walk. So I got up on monday and headed to school for the first time!!! I have met lots and lots of people and made many friends. Most of the time I can´t understand the teachers because they talk faster and speak with different words that make them sound fancier. The schooling is quite different. You have your class. And then you stay in that room for most of the day with the same people. The teachers change rooms. Sometimes you will change rooms for elective classes, but for most of the day you are in the same room. I sat next to a kid named Bruno on the first day, and we have sat together since in all the classes we have together. He was actually an exchange student to Indiana last year through a different program, so that really helped when I didn´t understand. Which was basically all the time. All my teachers are pretty understanding about it. I really can´t do too much due to the fact that I don´t understand 90% of what goes on. Which is pretty weird since in a conversation with another person my age, I can do pretty well. Its been kinda surprising but aside from english class (I´m pretty good at that class) french is the easiest. I am the only person in the class who hasn´t taken 4-5 years of french before this year, so the teacher is awesome and doing something totally different for me. Its nice to have a class where I actually do something, and I´m learning fast. Aside from that I have created some fantastic doodles.
On a totally unrelated subject I kinda feel like I have writers block right now, so I will probably come back and write more later. I´m putting this in to explain why my posts are sorta in chronological order, but they then just kinda morph into whatever goes through my head.
In school everyone is really nice to me, but sometimes I get some pretty silly questions so those are always fun. Also trying to teach people how to say beach and sheet in english class is hilarious. In english class I didn't even have to buy the books, the teacher said I can be an assistant teacher. Sooo I sit around, answer questions and correct the teacher on how to pronounce things. Its oodles of fun.
Now its picture time! (Thanks for reading too)
Now, on to the schooling. The monday and tuesday I was living with Carolina in her parents house, as her father was traveling and her mother needed someone to be there. So their house is about 8 minutes from the normal house. From their house to Las Llamas (my school) it is about a 5-10 minute walk. So I got up on monday and headed to school for the first time!!! I have met lots and lots of people and made many friends. Most of the time I can´t understand the teachers because they talk faster and speak with different words that make them sound fancier. The schooling is quite different. You have your class. And then you stay in that room for most of the day with the same people. The teachers change rooms. Sometimes you will change rooms for elective classes, but for most of the day you are in the same room. I sat next to a kid named Bruno on the first day, and we have sat together since in all the classes we have together. He was actually an exchange student to Indiana last year through a different program, so that really helped when I didn´t understand. Which was basically all the time. All my teachers are pretty understanding about it. I really can´t do too much due to the fact that I don´t understand 90% of what goes on. Which is pretty weird since in a conversation with another person my age, I can do pretty well. Its been kinda surprising but aside from english class (I´m pretty good at that class) french is the easiest. I am the only person in the class who hasn´t taken 4-5 years of french before this year, so the teacher is awesome and doing something totally different for me. Its nice to have a class where I actually do something, and I´m learning fast. Aside from that I have created some fantastic doodles.
On a totally unrelated subject I kinda feel like I have writers block right now, so I will probably come back and write more later. I´m putting this in to explain why my posts are sorta in chronological order, but they then just kinda morph into whatever goes through my head.
In school everyone is really nice to me, but sometimes I get some pretty silly questions so those are always fun. Also trying to teach people how to say beach and sheet in english class is hilarious. In english class I didn't even have to buy the books, the teacher said I can be an assistant teacher. Sooo I sit around, answer questions and correct the teacher on how to pronounce things. Its oodles of fun.
Now its picture time! (Thanks for reading too)
Don´t mind me hanging out in a castle
My awesome new sunglasses
A street in Logroño with the cathedral in the background
Logroños fireworks
The cathedral
Me, my host brother, and Cheyenne the exchanger in Logroño
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Mouro Madrid and Mountains oh My!
Hi guys! First off I would like to apologize for the delay in writing/posting all of this. I have been very busy doing things like swimming in freezing oceans, then hiding out in the freezing mountains 3 hours from Madrid. So obviously I have not had much time to write blog posts.
Starting with last week, last week was pretty normal aside from thursday and friday. I hung out, ate nutella, read Harry Potter in spanish. The usual stuff. Thursday was exciting, we went back out to Mouro and this time I had my camera so I have some awesome pictures. We went swimming while out there, however it was freezing. It probably was the last time that we will go there or swim there until spring. The water now is quite cold, and the sea is acting like posieden heard his favorite ice cream brand is getting shut down (its very rough). It was totally worth it though. I have some videos and just awesome stuff to show you all. I´m really sad I don´t get to swim there for quite a while. Then, that evening I went to try out for a U19 select team. Its based about 1 mile from my house. My highschool doesn´t have a team, so this was my only option. It wasnt actual tryouts, I just did a practice with them and if I was good enough I got to join. So before we started I was told that there are a lot of problems with the federation in spain with me playing (as I am an exchanger) which I find kind of stupid. But its all good, I will figure it out. So I played with the team, and it was so much fun. I have missed playing soccer so much. After the practice the coach pointed at me and said "next thursday 7:30" (In spanish) so now I can train with them, and if I get all the paper work figured out I can play in games too!!! :) Also, later that night I spent a while skyping Nuria (an ex exchange student friend who came to the USA last year) and that was fun.
Now, I should mention that throughout the week and especially Thursday night I was packing for orientation in "Madrid". We were scheduled to arrive 12:00-15:00 on Friday at one of three stations in Madrid. So I got up painfully early on Friday and headed to the bus station. I was, unfortunately, traveling alone. Most of the students had other students near them that they met up with to travel with. I only have one student near me, Amaia in Bilbao (we are the cool northerners) and she couldn´t get matching tickets so we were traveling alone. So I found my bus and went on. I then spent the next four hours listening to music and trying to drown out the lady talking in Mandarin the whole way. When I finally arrived there were only a few other exchange students there. So we hung out for a while in the station. Finally we had a huge crowed of us. Most I had talked to over our facebook page, so we got right to talking and being weird. A bus came, we all got on and went through Madrid picking up the students at the other stations. Then it was off to our destination that we had been told was a "little bit" out of Madrid. What we didn´t know was that it was a little bit outside the province of Madrid. So really 3 hours from Madrid and painfully high up in the mountains. None of us had any idea how long we were going to be on the bus, so it was kinda painful. We got there, and found that we were sleeping in tents. 80 other exchange students and I had packed for a hotel in Madrid. My phone was dead, there were like 2 outlets, and if it did have battery, there was no service. So we got split into tents, then we just hung out for the rest of the night. We had dinner in a building that had tarps for walls. In short we all got to know eachother better. So we played games, ran around, then at 12 we went to bed. I was in a tent with 3 rotex (people who have done exchange and returned) from spain. Alejandra (spanish rotary lady) actually briefly thought that I was rotex from Spain which was hilarious. Our tent was easily the most fun tent. We were somewhat known the next day due to loud conversations in spanish (everything else at camp was english) and yelling rude lyrics to songs till about 1-1:30. Then came the sleep. I dozed off in my sleeping bag, then about 30 minutes later realized that I was totally frozen. The remaineder of the night was spent putting on more clothes, curled up in a ball in my sleeping bag, desperately trying to stay not dead. It was so incredibly cold. I didn´t sleep more then an hour that night. Also large amounts of time were spent dreading doing this again the next night. When we finally all got up at 7 it was miserable. Almost everyone had almost the same expierience. We had a decent breakfast, with lots of hot chocolate. Afterwards we messed around a bit, then we had talks all morning about rules, then some paper work and other stuff. It was then announced that we were moving to a camp ground that had buildings to stay in. It was possibly one of the happiest moments of camp. But we didn´t move until later. First we did lots of pin trading with the other exchange students, then we took pictures with eachother and as a large group. Finally we cleaned out our tents and put everything in a trailer to be taken to the other campsite. We had to walk though. Once there we unloaded the trailer, and then we went on a hike up through the mountains. It took 2 hours, but we were rewarded with an incredible view of the graveyard where Franco is buried. We climbed around on the rocks and had a great time. We went back, ate dinner, and made skits to perform infront of the other exchange students. My group did a decent skit, I got to be a bull and run around trying to skewer people with my horns of paper. Terrifying stuff. However I have to say hats off to Reid for the incredible Miley skit. After that we just messed around and in general had a great time. The next day we got up, ate and immediately got on the bus to go back to Madrid. Once in Madrid we all were dropped off at our stations. My bus didn´t leave for a while, so I waited in the station with several other exchangers and talked. When I got on the bus I figured out that my Rotary had bought me a first class ticket for the ride home, so a big thank you to them. I spent the whole time watching movies. It was a great expiereince. I had the time of my life, and I made so many friends. I have friends in all parts of España now.
It was a great week, and an unforgettable weekend. Thank you very much to everyone there, and everyone who helped put it on. Thank you also to all Rotary clubs for sending all of us exchange students.
These are just some of the pictures from Mouro and the orientation, I´m not going to caption them. I hope you like them! More might come later. Also I have heard a lot about problems with instagram, I will edit a direct link in on the about me collum. You can also expect a post about school soon as there is a presentation tomorrow then it starts monday. :] Thanks for reading!!!
Starting with last week, last week was pretty normal aside from thursday and friday. I hung out, ate nutella, read Harry Potter in spanish. The usual stuff. Thursday was exciting, we went back out to Mouro and this time I had my camera so I have some awesome pictures. We went swimming while out there, however it was freezing. It probably was the last time that we will go there or swim there until spring. The water now is quite cold, and the sea is acting like posieden heard his favorite ice cream brand is getting shut down (its very rough). It was totally worth it though. I have some videos and just awesome stuff to show you all. I´m really sad I don´t get to swim there for quite a while. Then, that evening I went to try out for a U19 select team. Its based about 1 mile from my house. My highschool doesn´t have a team, so this was my only option. It wasnt actual tryouts, I just did a practice with them and if I was good enough I got to join. So before we started I was told that there are a lot of problems with the federation in spain with me playing (as I am an exchanger) which I find kind of stupid. But its all good, I will figure it out. So I played with the team, and it was so much fun. I have missed playing soccer so much. After the practice the coach pointed at me and said "next thursday 7:30" (In spanish) so now I can train with them, and if I get all the paper work figured out I can play in games too!!! :) Also, later that night I spent a while skyping Nuria (an ex exchange student friend who came to the USA last year) and that was fun.
Now, I should mention that throughout the week and especially Thursday night I was packing for orientation in "Madrid". We were scheduled to arrive 12:00-15:00 on Friday at one of three stations in Madrid. So I got up painfully early on Friday and headed to the bus station. I was, unfortunately, traveling alone. Most of the students had other students near them that they met up with to travel with. I only have one student near me, Amaia in Bilbao (we are the cool northerners) and she couldn´t get matching tickets so we were traveling alone. So I found my bus and went on. I then spent the next four hours listening to music and trying to drown out the lady talking in Mandarin the whole way. When I finally arrived there were only a few other exchange students there. So we hung out for a while in the station. Finally we had a huge crowed of us. Most I had talked to over our facebook page, so we got right to talking and being weird. A bus came, we all got on and went through Madrid picking up the students at the other stations. Then it was off to our destination that we had been told was a "little bit" out of Madrid. What we didn´t know was that it was a little bit outside the province of Madrid. So really 3 hours from Madrid and painfully high up in the mountains. None of us had any idea how long we were going to be on the bus, so it was kinda painful. We got there, and found that we were sleeping in tents. 80 other exchange students and I had packed for a hotel in Madrid. My phone was dead, there were like 2 outlets, and if it did have battery, there was no service. So we got split into tents, then we just hung out for the rest of the night. We had dinner in a building that had tarps for walls. In short we all got to know eachother better. So we played games, ran around, then at 12 we went to bed. I was in a tent with 3 rotex (people who have done exchange and returned) from spain. Alejandra (spanish rotary lady) actually briefly thought that I was rotex from Spain which was hilarious. Our tent was easily the most fun tent. We were somewhat known the next day due to loud conversations in spanish (everything else at camp was english) and yelling rude lyrics to songs till about 1-1:30. Then came the sleep. I dozed off in my sleeping bag, then about 30 minutes later realized that I was totally frozen. The remaineder of the night was spent putting on more clothes, curled up in a ball in my sleeping bag, desperately trying to stay not dead. It was so incredibly cold. I didn´t sleep more then an hour that night. Also large amounts of time were spent dreading doing this again the next night. When we finally all got up at 7 it was miserable. Almost everyone had almost the same expierience. We had a decent breakfast, with lots of hot chocolate. Afterwards we messed around a bit, then we had talks all morning about rules, then some paper work and other stuff. It was then announced that we were moving to a camp ground that had buildings to stay in. It was possibly one of the happiest moments of camp. But we didn´t move until later. First we did lots of pin trading with the other exchange students, then we took pictures with eachother and as a large group. Finally we cleaned out our tents and put everything in a trailer to be taken to the other campsite. We had to walk though. Once there we unloaded the trailer, and then we went on a hike up through the mountains. It took 2 hours, but we were rewarded with an incredible view of the graveyard where Franco is buried. We climbed around on the rocks and had a great time. We went back, ate dinner, and made skits to perform infront of the other exchange students. My group did a decent skit, I got to be a bull and run around trying to skewer people with my horns of paper. Terrifying stuff. However I have to say hats off to Reid for the incredible Miley skit. After that we just messed around and in general had a great time. The next day we got up, ate and immediately got on the bus to go back to Madrid. Once in Madrid we all were dropped off at our stations. My bus didn´t leave for a while, so I waited in the station with several other exchangers and talked. When I got on the bus I figured out that my Rotary had bought me a first class ticket for the ride home, so a big thank you to them. I spent the whole time watching movies. It was a great expiereince. I had the time of my life, and I made so many friends. I have friends in all parts of España now.
It was a great week, and an unforgettable weekend. Thank you very much to everyone there, and everyone who helped put it on. Thank you also to all Rotary clubs for sending all of us exchange students.
These are just some of the pictures from Mouro and the orientation, I´m not going to caption them. I hope you like them! More might come later. Also I have heard a lot about problems with instagram, I will edit a direct link in on the about me collum. You can also expect a post about school soon as there is a presentation tomorrow then it starts monday. :] Thanks for reading!!!
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